


Relapses

by Oreotragus



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Crimes & Criminals, Dark Past, Dubious Consent, Explicit Language, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-03
Updated: 2013-08-05
Packaged: 2017-12-22 07:39:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 21,408
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/910623
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oreotragus/pseuds/Oreotragus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite having become a great asset to humankind, Captain Levi still has some trouble adjusting to his post-crime lifestyle, especially the social aspects of it. One extremely badly coordinated step out of his comfort zone creates a grand mess that he has to clean up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Arrogance

**Author's Note:**

> In this fic Hanji Zoe is referred to as Hange Zoë, with Zoë being her given name, because Kodansha that's why. 
> 
> Warning: The Levi I write is not a very nice person. This fan fiction contains explicit sexual content and terrible, overly fanficul fabrications that the series could reveal to be utter nonsense any day now. Also English isn't my native language so I may at the very least use different regional varieties of it somewhat inconsistently. Also I just farted. Sorry about that.
> 
> And just to put it out there, just in case: any derivative work based on this fic is fine by me, no need to ask for permission or anything.
> 
> Edit 27th September 2013: I may revise this fic to fit with the established canon as we find more and more about the characters' real backgrounds. I'm crossing my fingers and hoping I can salvage this fic from becoming outdated/blatantly AU...

”Man, girls from the Survey Corps are _easy_!”

If there was a statement Captain Levi absolutely hated to hear from the scoffing, bragging mouths of young Garrison men, it was this one. More than anything, he wanted to walk up to them an inform them oh-so-casually, ”No, you idiotic shitfaces, _you_ are the easy ones.” But today like always, or usually anyway, he restrained himself and walked on. The inattentive guards remained blissfully oblivious that the cold wrath of Levi had been upon them and they had survived it.

”So that's that dealt with” much relieved Commander Erwin Smith stated to nobody in particular. Unlike Levi, he paid no heed to the guards leaning against a wall near the meeting room he had just come out of. He had successfully ironed out some supply issues that the Survey Corps and the Garrison had been having and that was all that mattered. Or so it seemed, until Erwin posed a certain ominous question.

”Levi, your leave starts tomorrow. You do know what that means, don't you?” he asked in a deceptively light manner, glancing at his underling over his shoulder without a discernible emotion of any kind. Levi stopped abruptly for a moment, less than a second, and his nigh permanent scowl deepened. Erwin Smith was so sharp and in tune with other people it was scary – sometimes it was like he could read your thoughts.

”Tsch” Levi spat and looked to the side, annoyed that he had flustered even a fraction of a second under the man's observant eyes. Erwin had most definitely not missed either the guards' words or Levi's suppressed reaction to said drivel.

”By the looks of it, you have started isolating yourself again, and that's not good for you” Erwin stated plainly, then resumed looking forward. The hallway ahead was rife with possible eavesdroppers – their presence meant the commander would be forced to beat around the bush when it came to expressing the nature of his concern. For that, Levi was grateful.

”I expect you to be in tip top condition by the start of the next expedition. Levi, I _order_ you to make the most out of your time off. If you're not going to do it for your own sake, then do it for the sake of those who have died” he said to his gloomy underling before falling silent.

This – this was Erwin Smith's subtle way of telling Levi to go out and get laid. Or get a hobby.

It was half real concern and half punishment of sorts, tracing back to an incident that had happened a couple of years prior. Levi had humiliated and deprived a few arrogant and disobedient rookies of their leave without consulting his superiors and it had ended up creating a bit of a fuss. With the Survey Corps's constant personnel shortage, people rarely had leaves – that was ultimately the real problem, but it was hard to fix. Soldiers occasionally needed time to meet their families, to relax, to mentally prepare for death in the jaws of the titans in order to function. Of course, these promisingly skilled rookies had gone and died on the very next excursion after this rare luxury had been taken from them, causing bad morale among the survivors. This had also caused distrust towards Levi in the higher ranks.

They had been in the right not to trust him back then – he would have continued being as negligent towards sensibilities like these if it hadn't been for Erwin, the person entirely responsible for him being in the army in the first place. Instead of an official punisment which wouldn't have taught the flippant one-man army anything, Erwin had called him to his office for what he had jokingly called a ”father-to-son kind of talk” to teach him some respect for other people's private lives.

Despite having essentially ended the problem there, some people would long accuse Erwin of having been too lenient with him. Everyone who had seen Levi's face when he had stormed out of the commander's office, however, knew that the man had probably never been put to his place as thoroughly, not since Erwin had forced him to join his cause. People who called Erwin stiff and by-the-book were equally as wrong as those who called him lenient – he could be downright devious if needed.

” _I cannot help but to notice that you are quite antagonistic towards soldiers who are, well, sexually active. Why is that, Levi?”_

Levi had cursed himself and his big mouth countless times since then – he shouldn't have said anything about the rookies ”only going to go pick up some whores anyway”, not with such utter contempt anyway. He had never seen the commander turn so cold so quickly and become so obviously tempted to flog him like a brat. Instead though, Erwin had calmed down and informed him that, as controversial as it was, prostitutes provided an important service to stressed and lonely soldiers. More importantly, few prostitutes were in the business because they absolutely wanted to, but because they didn't have much choice. They were part of the humankind the army vowed to protect and Levi, with his past, had no business looking down on them.

This was where Levi's disdain of the Garrison came in as well, actually. While romantic and sexual relationships among the Survey Corps soldiers were discouraged and frowned upon, nobody seemed to care about affairs between different divisions. For reasons you'd have to consult some kind of expert on the military's cultural history, Garrison men had turned the back-and-forth bed hopping tradition into some sort of bizarre dick waving contest to prove that they were better than Survey Corps men. It must have been all that relative peace and quiet inside the walls – soldiers in the Survey Corps were too busy trying not to go insane while struggling to survive against abysmal odds to keep a score on such a thing.

However, Erwin had long since known that Levi could be bothered by the strangest things, especially if it involved some kind of _haves_ taunting the _have-nots_. He had gotten better though, much better. His skills had made him a well known figure even among civilians, who had been eager to ignore the feats of the Survey Corps as a waste of resources before the fall of Wall Maria. Yet there were lapses. The sullen man returned to his comfort zone all too easily, which lead him to seclude himself and be a downright narrow-minded prick towards people around him. For his own sake as much as for the future of the Survey Corps, Erwin wanted him to become a more rounded and stable person still.

Levi, unbecknownst to his commander, had found himself thinking along similar lines a long time ago. Looking at himself from afar as objectively as he could, his evaluation was that he was still full of shit. He had indeed started to insulate himself against people for no good reason again, for starters. The snooty brat that had been forced to join the army raised his head from time to time, reminding him that he had no real investment in any of Erwin's games and that he should just do the bare minimum of what he had promised to do. Levi was embarrassed by this – what was a useless degenerate like that hanging on to him for even after he had decided that he would do whatever it took to kill the titans?

Another embarrassing thing Levi knew about himself was that even without that youthful defiance flaring inside him, he seemed to opportunistically sabotage his own plans to interact with other people. Somewhere in his mind he was still convinced he was one of those unfettered work addicts who seemed to do completely fine without a lick of intimacy, like Commander Erwin himself seemed to be. Time and again, however, Levi had been forced to face the facts: he wasn't like his superior in this regard no matter how convenient it would have been.

It was stupid, but too much time doing nothing but work and not talking with people left him strained, irritated, and on edge. Much more so than usual, that is. Soon afterwards he would start thinking about running away from the army, following a horrid longing for a time when he had been doing shady jobs with his ”friends”, because that was the last time he remembered being able to do anything just because. Why was he still feeling camaraderie towards people who would double-cross him for the slightest gain and not these soldiers who couldn't even gain anything from it? Nostalgia could be such a seductive liar.

” _You ought to know this better than anyone, Levi. Concentrating on survival alone is efficient, but a candle that burns at both ends won't last the night.  Are you sure you want to return to that lifestyle?”_

He hadn't been able to answer that question during that painfully patronising talk-down and he wasn't sure he could answer it now, either. Apart from eating, shitting, killing the titans, leading a squad, being very meticulous about cleanliness, sleeping, and having the occasional wank – what _was_ he doing? What the hell was he _supposed_ to be doing?

 

 

 


	2. Copping Out

”Captain Levi?” Erwin asked Levi in a formal manner, snapping him out of his thoughts. Levi couldn't believe his mind had already started wandering – what was being said, again? Everyone around the conference table looked at him. The squad leaders and team leaders. The upcoming expedition. After sorting out the supply dispute, he and Erwin had come to shave down complications in the plans with the squad leaders' feedback, he remembered.

”I have nothing to add” he said after a pause and took a sip of bland, lukewarm tea from his cup. If someone had noticed that he had been absent-minded, nobody at least made any indication of that.

”Good. This concludes our meeting. Go ahead and inform your squads” Erwin ordered. The squad leaders, everyone except Levi anyway, stood up, said their yessirs, and walked out.

”You too, Levi. Your squad is officially off-duty after four o'clock – I expect you to finish up before that” the commander then said. Levi's hackles bristled. Did Erwin really think so little of him that he needed to keep tabs on him all the time now?

”Yes” he answered in monotone and put down his now empty cup. But, even after his commander left the conference room, he remained sitting and staring into empty space, thinking. He was brought back to the present only when he was being addressed again.

”C-captain?” came a nervous and demure voice from the door. Petra Rall, a recent addition to his squad, stood there expectantly, her hand frozen in the middle of sweeping her ruddy blond hair behind her ears.

”We were wondering where you were when we saw the other squad leaders. Are you-” she held back her tongue and her voice died off.

”Judging from the 'we', the others are here too. Tell them to come over” Levi ordered coolly.

”Yessir” the young woman complied and went back to where she had come from. Levi had started to notice a pattern – whenever he was especially hard to approach, his squad sent the new girl in as an intermediary. He was tempted to treat her especially harshly just to show those dunces he wasn't so easily manipulated into docility, but that would have been a bit much.

But Petra, huh. Was she Levi's type? Levi wasn't sure he had a type. It sometimes popped into his head that it had been an absurdly long time since he had actually had sex. He hadn't been with a woman since he had been forced to join the army, in fact. There was nothing particularly memorable about the women, well, _girls_ he had been with before that. He wondered if any of them still remembered fooling around with a mean runt who had treated them like rubbish.

In any case, he wasn't even supposed to feel attracted towards anyone in the Survey Corps, least of all towards anyone in his squad. Yet he didn't have time or motivation to form any kind of affair with someone from the outside either, _especially_ anyone from the Garrison and just thinking about prostitutes made him remember things that wrung his guts. Someone who had no idea what it felt going outside the wall and seeing people die in horrible ways would just piss him off anyway. What a mess. And if there was something Levi hated, it was a mess.

After informing his squad in a professionally detached manner and making all the other ends meet as well, he realised he was working overtime. It was already six o'clock. But as long as it didn't affect his squad or anybody else, it was fine. Except it wasn't, he then realised. The very next day he would wake up in comforting silence and decide that he had exaggerated his problems the day before and that Erwin was just a nosy piece of shit who should mind his own business. He would avoid contact with other people and spend the four days he had off doing training or something, come back on duty, and realise he had sabotaged his plans to be more outgoing again. And Erwin would know that just by looking at him. And he'd let him know that he knew.

He needed to do something this very evening. Even if it was just to trick himself into thinking he'd done something worthwhile in order to improve, he'd do something recreational with another thinking, feeling human being. There was one problem though: he couldn't even remember the time he had hung out with someone just because, talked about something but nothing in particular, or non-violently touched anyone who wasn't in some stage of death and decay. Had he ever even been the one to initiate anything like that?

So, who did he know who would chat him up if he made himself available, instead of the other way round? Was there someone who was extroverted to the extreme and would do most if not all of the talking? Why of course there was, and that someone would soon make him feel like a complete idiot for making such a big deal out of just getting someone to talk to him.

”Huh? I always got the impression that you weren't interested in this kind of stuff, Levi” said person told Levi when he appeared in the study area with the feigned intent of reading up on titan research.

This was Zoë Hange, or rather Hange Zoë because for a reason Levi didn't really understand since the world he came from had aliases, not surnames, she always introduced herself surname first. Maybe it was a regional thing. In any case, she was a squad leader who was a reasonably capable leader during expeditions beyond the walls but, in Levi's opinion, a person best avoided like the plague at all other times.

She was a deceptively harmless and amiable person at first sight, which was why she was many a rookie's safe haven from super strict and serious superiors like Levi. But this was only until they realised that she was actually kind of worse in some ways. For one thing, considering how undesirable the two likely outcomes of being in the Survey Corps for an extended time were – madness and death, one often following the other – Zoë seemed surprisingly okay with being messed up like a box of coathangers. It probably came with the condition.

She had always been a bit unhinged, apparently. According to the gossip that his squad had sometimes indulged in despite Levi repeatedly telling them not to, she had gone through not one, but two complete changes of character since enlisting in military school. The first one had turned her into an exceptionally hateful and inflexible person. The latter one had swung her as far into the opposite direction as possible. After that she developed a disturbingly intense fascination towards titans, not to mention a very obnoxious habit of never shutting up about them. Right now this very trait was a godsend, however. On and on she went, telling everything and more Levi had ever wanted to know about the titans and all the creepy ways Zoë was interested in them.

”I mean, it's bizarre isn't it. They're more like moving plants than animals” she at one point stated ”Yet they look like people, except not quite. Why would you want to look like an overgrown, malformed person if you're going to eat people?”

During the past hour Levi had listened to her, he had been irked by the way she had attributed all kinds of humanlike attributes to them, like ”wanting” things. They obviously operated on sheer instinct, nothing more. He hadn't commented this though – she carried a one-sided conversation on her own very well and that was all that mattered. It had been ages since he had last needed to give any kind of feedback so he had turned to organising the books in the study room while she yakked away. Suddenly though, she started to look like she was running out of steam.

”If they look like people because it's useful to them somehow, then you'd think that they'd want to look like normal people, you know what I mean? Hmm... What would cause them to become that way? Again, if only we knew how they reproduced...” she rambled on, then stopped to muse quietly. Too quietly.

She sat silently on a large conference table that took a large chunk of the room's floor space, dangling her feet like a kid. Her behind was almost on top of the notes she had been making prior to being distracted, now utterly neglected. Levi, who was moving books from one shelf to another, casually dodged one of her haphazard kicks and knit his brow.

”So you're saying that they evolved” he spoke her implication aloud.

”We can't rule out that possibility yet” was her surprisingly laconic answer. Silence ensued again.

What, finished already? She couldn't have run out of things to say. She _never_ ran out of things to say. Annoyed, the captain tried to think of something that would help the word vomit come along. About to say something to her, he turned away from the bookshelf he was facing and looked at Zoë. To his surprise, he was met with an expression of worry topped with a dash of disapproval and suspicion. The woman looked uncharacteristically grave in the dim light of a single oil lamp.

”Levi... Why are you here, really?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh god oh shit oh god I have never published anything before and I'm nervous as hell and I keep finding mistakes everywhere and I don't even know if they're mistakes or if I have ceased to understand basic English.


	3. Cowardice

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am Oreotragus' mouse cursor, hovering indecisively over the 'Post' button.

Zoë's suspicious and worried question had come out of nowhere and Levi wasn't sure how to answer. The nonchalant man faced her bespectacled mug head-on with a blank expression, then responded with an aloof shrug.

”I was bored so I figured I might as well come here and update my knowledge” he said and turned back to organising the bookshelves. Ideally, that lie should have done it, alas...

”Ha, good one!” the woman laughed boisterously ”C'mon, we've known each other for years now. The Levi I know wouldn't come here to read while I'm here. So what's the real reason?”

Well, touché. She could be surprisingly savvy, couldn't she? He felt slightly bad for underestimating her just because she always acted like a ditz, but he wasn't going to disclose his private frustrations to her either. Since she seemed like she wasn't going buy any convenient lie he could conjure up, he might as well not answer. So, he just let his shoulders slump in resignation and continued what he was doing. Zoë's expression softened a little as she watched him and let out a little sigh through her somewhat prominent nose.

”If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were lonely” she murmured, then theatrically steeled herself for a smack over her head with the heavy tome he was now carrying. Levi thought about doing just that, but restrained himself. He didn't like being overly predictable.

”Can I put those away already?” he asked when he put the tome in its rightful place. He nodded at the clutter of opened and closed books and files that were piled next to her.

”S-sure. But not these ones here, I'm going to have to take them with me” Zoë stuttered and removed things from the pile, obviously bewildered by the lack of even the kind of vicious retort she'd usually get for making unnecessary comments.

Levi picked up about half of the other books one by one, closing the ones whose pages were splayed open. Zoë tilted her head in confusion at his indifference, then dragged her behind off the table she sat on and stretched her thin body. For a moment, she looked a bit elegant with her arms raised above her head, but then, her shoulders made a terrible cracking sound. Levi winced and turned his head away – nothing there he wanted to see, after all. After blood had rushed into her joints and refreshed her, the Zoë helpfully took the rest of the books in her arms. She started to walk back and forth in front of the shelves that lined the walls of the room, looking for the spots she had taken each book from.

”Augh, you squeezed the rows together so I can't see the spots where there are books are missing” she groaned accusingly and ran her hand through her ruffled brown hair.

”Does the term 'alphabetical order' say anything to you, four-eyes?” Levi asked her and yanked the remaining books from her with an annoyed grimace. Zoë grinned sheepishly and rubbed the back of her neck in slight embarrassment.

This had dragged on long enough, Levi concluded. It had taken him some time to find Zoë so now it was already late in the evening. It was starting to look very suspicious too. He wasn't sure if this session could be considered a conversation, but he had been talked at, smiled at, laughed at, and he had exhausted himself intellectually by trying to keep up with Zoë's strange hypotheses. He would wake up the next morning feeling slightly refreshed, probably.

”So, do I owe you anything? I mean, I'm sure you know I've gotten numerous complaints about how the books are always kinda here and there” Zoë asked somewhat meekly, making him flinch as he was pushing the last book into the cramped row.

”No” hemmed Levi, keeping an uncomfortable thought at bay. No matter how long it had been since he had been with a woman, nothing good could come with laying with this woman in particular.

Suddenly, though, Zoë took a step closer, standing so close behind him that he could almost feel her breath against his neck.

”Are you sure, _hmmm_?” the slightly taller woman drawled, her voice so thick with tease it hit a bit too close to home.

Levi didn't budge. She didn't budge. The question hung in the air like a suffocating blanket. A flaming candle on the table crackled from some impurity in its wick, accentuating the silence. A sudden, distasteful thought occurred to the man.

_Come to think of it... Didn't I think how suspicious it was _just a while ago_?_

Levi turned around with a click of his heels and stared at her with a disdainful scowl. She stared him back with a defiant, smug smile only inches away from his face. He didn't understand how, but she _knew._

_It's like she's always trying to get the youngest, most good-looking little boys into her squad, isn't it._

”Well? A penny for your thoughts, captain” Zoë dared him.

The edge of Levi's mouth twitched. Then his arm shot around her and put a stop to her head drawing away from him, then he kissed her lips. Almost the same instant, he pushed her towards the table and elicited a surprised squeal from her into his mouth when her bottom hit its edge.

_Too bad I'm not young or inexperienced like your lackeys, shitty four-eyes._

Once the startled woman found her feet again, she froze in place, as if she only now understood what was happening. She resumed breathing, the air from her nose fanning Levi's face. She didn't push him away when her lips separated from his and she seemed to tentatively accept another deeper kiss by not closing her mouth that hung open. Levi's tongue ventured inside and he immediately cringed in disgust: she tasted of morning breath.

He decided he didn't like her looking down on him even though the height difference was only about ten centimetres. He'd have to fix that. After ending the kiss and wiping his mouth, he turned his attention to deftly detaching Zoë's three dimensional maneuver gear harness at the waist so he could pull her trousers down. The woman stood in stunned silence, her hands now raised to her lips. She almost said something but swallowed her words and clutched her hands against her chest.

Levi looked up into her eyes. Brown, wide with astonishment. Nervous. Was she playing coy, or had she cast a bait without expecting him to bite? He hesitated for a moment, but he concluded that it was too late to back out now. He spun Zoë around as if she was a mannekin and pulled everything she wore below her waist towards him until they were bundled just above her knees. Then Levi detached his own harness, unbuttoned his trousers, and tugged them down. He bent her forwards unkindly so her torso was pressed against the table. He went in without warning her.

The woman recoiled with a broken gasp as if she had been dipped into frozen water. ”Levi!” she protested in pain. Levi cursed at himself for making such a stupid mistake – she wasn't wet enough. He clenched his teeth and waited with his hands on her hips. To his relief, Zoë made a noticeable effort to relax: she drew in long, deep breaths and raised her torso off the table, supporting herself with her arms. Levi craned his neck to see a glimpse of the side of her face and saw that her eyes were half shut. Her slightly tan cheeks were redder than he had ever seen them before. She wasn't bad-looking, he admitted, it was just her personality and the inelegant way she carried herself that sucked.

Neither one spoke. When Zoë arched her back and moved in a way that Levi interpreted as permissive, the man wasted no more time. The detached leather straps from Zoë's harness and their metal buckles clinked and scraped rhythmically against the table as his thin, wiry body bucked and writhed against hers. Levi soon felt her spreading her legs a bit more and saw her fingernails scratching the wooden table. After that, Zoë's breaths started to carry quiet, broken sounds with them until she glanced at the closed door in sudden horrific realisation. She had abandoned the support of one of her arms in favour of covering her mouth.

Levi almost smirked at the sight of this and he tightened his grip, pulling her hips towards him. He wanted to see her all but collapse into a sweaty heap on the table, maybe even while calling his name. He started to quicken his pace, gouge deeper, take shallower breaths. His focus kept narrowing down, forcing the titans, his obligations, and the taint of death out of his mind. All his mind could handle right that moment was what was happening between him and this woman, towards whom he hadn't ever even felt any interest in. She felt alive. That made him feel alive. He held back a groan.

He was in the middle of an exciting buildup that felt like it could lift him to incredible heights ...Then the climax came. Too early. Regardless, its forceful tension felt like it could snap his spine if he didn't ride it out carefully. It wrung everything out of him as he came inside Zoë with such short, frantic thrusts, it was as if someone was holding needles against his arse. When it stopped, it was like something heavy had briefly been lifted off of him and something almost as heavy had replaced it.

He'd done it, he thought victoriously. It had been such a long time since he had done this with somebody, he had been a bit worried whether he could. For a moment, it was an exhilarating achievement. Then, alongside the sobriety that was coming back to him, reality came too. Levi looked down and, with eyes unclouded by lust, saw that he was holding onto a sweating, panting woman who stood in a compromising position he had forced her into. The warm wetness around his cock was partially his seed that he had shot into her.

Levi recoiled. He drew himself out, cleaned himself hastily with a handkerchief he had, dropped said piece of fabric in revoltion, and pulled up his trousers. He did something that was supposed to be unthinkable to him: he fled. He left a shocked, dumbfounded Zoë alone in the study room to deal with his mess without even the benefit of physical release that Levi had been granted. As the man half walked, haf ran through the dim corridors, he knew that escaping this way was another terribly stupid thing to do but knew he couldn't go back, either. He fought back his guilt and tried to derail his train of thought but mercilessly, the memories followed each other as inevitably as day followed night and painted the hardly lit corridors with all the things he didn't want to see.

 _It's just because you've been stressed lately_ , he tried to convince himself. It didn't hold back the demons.

A teenaged boy, pulling the long hair of a woman who was trying to run away. Him stabbing a father who was standing between the invaders and his sons and daughters. The same boy with his accomplices, walking past a handful of young people, even children, who were being taken away in shackles. Him sticking a petty amount of money into his pocket for a job well done. Him staring into the dead eyes of a kid who knew he was going to end up as some rich pervert's toy. Him thinking that as long as it wasn't him, he didn't care.

_That's not you anymore. You're not filth!_

He opened the door of his private quarters, went through it, and slammed it behind him. Panting more out of sheer anger and frustration than exhaustion, he sat on the edge of his bed and stared into nothingness. He clenched his jaws and fists as he contemplated just how much of a scumbag he had just been to someone who, despite all the nasty things he had thought of her, was a comrade of his.

_So why the hell are you still acting like it?_


	4. Envy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Vagueness is the only ally of a person who is hopelessly confused about in-universe locations and distances. Also, is it just me or do those horses they use look like Akhal-Tekes sometimes...

After a strange combination of first not being able to get any sleep due to his storming mind and then sleeping better than he had in a long time, Levi woke up somewhat late in the morning and felt almost lazy. Horses whinnied somewhere in the distance, birds were singing their hearts out because it was spring. But when the day before came to haunt his mind, he couldn't hear them anymore from the memory-induced release of stress hormones.

”Shit” he grumbled as he sat up abruptly. He had told himself that he'd figure something out the next day. Well, now was the next day. He needed to think of something that would make Zoë forget, well... As much of yesterday as possible, preferably all of it. If she told Commander Erwin what had happened, he could be in deep shit.

After his usual meticulous morning routines which he never skimped on even in a dire situation such as this, he left his private quarters, the only home he currently had. He wore his practical but smart civilian attire. He went outside and made a discovery that made him feel unusually stupid and amateurish.

”Hange? Levi, I'm pretty sure I saw you in the meeting yesterday...” answered Mike Zacharias, a blond giant of a squad leader, when Levi asked him about Zoë's whereabouts. He had already been baffled by the way the troubled-looking little guy had called him away from his squad outside the army's stables, and now this.

”Yes, I was there. What about it?” Levi asked gruffly. Mike cocked his brow.

”Her squad has their leave at the same time as yours” he reminded his junior ”The schedule was decided ages ago and it recently passed again without any changes. From what I know, Hange left early this morning.”

”... I must not have paid enough attention” Levi admitted reluctantly and pinched the bridge of his nose, deep in thought. Mike briefly turned his attention towards his squad, gesturing them to stay where they were.

”The thing is” the captain then continued, sounding ashamed ”there's an urgent matter that I need to settle with her.”

Mike tilted his head, not that it helped him to see Levi's expression. He was just too tall compared to him.

”So, do you have any idea where she could have gone?” the shorter male asked and looked back up, only to find the giant leaning down and sniffing him.

Levi made an incredible effort not to kick him in the knee. Miraculously, he succeeded, although he knew he'd be tempted again if he looked in the direction of Mike's squad or anybody else who was watching. When the tall squad leader stood back up, he made a cryptic face, the one he always made after smelling someone, crossed his arms, and thought about something in silence.

”I think she told me once where her family's from” he finally said and looked straight into the captain's narrow eyes. He paused for a moment, gauging him ”Yeah, I remember now – she lives in eastern Hermiha.”

How the hell smelling him had helped this freaky bloodhound remember any of that Levi didn't know. Nor did he want to know.

”Inland edge district, huh...” Levi grumbled irately as he started to walk away from him. Zoë had never seemed like she was from a well-off family. Then again, not all inlander families were well off and being in the army had a homogenising effect on people anyway.

”By the way, Levi, have you been...” Mike started, then bit back his tongue ”No, never mind, it's none of my business. Good luck with finding Hange, if you really intend to go to Hermiha.”

Levi didn't think he had much of a choice. This whole mess could blow up in his face if he didn't do damage control immediately, before the woman had a chance to tell anyone. Assuming she already hadn't. Now, how would Zoë react to him suddenly turning up at her home door without invitation though, after what he had done? She could view him as a stalker – that could be problematic. He decided he'd deal with all this somehow when he got there. _If_ he got there.

Before going back to his private quarters to prepare for what could be just a wild goose chase, he impulsively took a detour to the archive and library department. His face was well known among soldiers of all ranks but he wasn't a common sight in this area in particular, so he got strange looks when he stormed through. He ignored them. When he came to the study room, he opened the door carefully like some kind of beast was waiting for him on the other side. Nobody was there to see him, thank heavens. He held his breath for a moment as his eyes darted about, expecting to find evidence of what he had been doing with Zoë the night before.

There was nothing out of the ordinary. The chairs were around the large wooden table in an orderly fashion and the shelves were the way he had left them. The place looked rather innocent in the daylight that filtered through the bookshelves that obstructed the two windows in the room. Shit, the windows – he hadn't even thought about them. Thankfully they were third floor windows that pointed in the middle of nowhere, not to mention that the poorly placed shelves made them hard to see through.

After a while, the place started to give him the creeps and make him feel dirty. He made a mental note to avoid going there at all costs in the future.

Levi packed what he considered an absolute minimum of luggage for his trip inside a duffel bag – among them money, shaving instruments, and a small knife because some habits from the streets died hard yet he didn't want to use his razor to cut somebody. He then threw a travel cloak on himself, one without the Survey Corps emblem since he was off-duty, and left his quarters. Due to his rank, he had the right to use his preferred horse any time, but he decided not to take any chances. It could raise some questions if someone noticed it was missing for more than a day. He'd go by the freight-carrying river ferries instead even though it would take a bit longer. He assumed he'd arrive at Hermiha sometime before or during the evening.

The trip itself wasn't pleasant, not that he had expected it to be. It gave him a lot of time to reflect on things, forcing him to take a long hard look at what he had done and what his responsibilities were. He'd have to apologise to Zoë, tell that it was within her rights to file a complaint to commander Erwin Smith about him, and that regardless of what she did he would never do this sort of thing ever again. He would, however, still tell her that if there was a compensation that could make her _not_ tell the commander, that could be arranged as well. Then he'd leave as soon as he could and keep his distance from her ever after. If she decided to tell the commander, too bad – he'd just have to endure it.

When he reached Hermiha, the real problems with his search started. ”Eastern Hermiha” was really vague, but his only hope was to go east and see if someone recognised her name. Before leaving the ferry docks, he asked the merchants that had come to see off their deliveries but they didn't know. Then he went east and asked some store owners. They didn't know either. Then he went to the eastern Garrison guard post and asked a bunch of drinking, gambling guards if they knew. Nothing. Even the whole of Hermiha wasn't _that_ big, so this seemed odd. Mike had said that Zoë's _family_ was from here – you'd think someone knew at least the name 'Hange'.

When night came, the tired captain booked himself into the cleanest inn he could find and decided to try again in the morning. He didn't sleep well – he suspected but couldn't confirm that his sheets had already been used.

Not much later than the break of dawn, Levi was happy to book out and start searching. Roaming around the town, he couldn't help but to compare the place to where he had grown up. The contrast was striking: the place was free of terrible smells, the streets were free of unlawfully kept livestock, and the most unscrupulous people you'd meet were the proselytising Wallists. No kid Levi had seen scurrying around and helping their parents with their trade had thus far been covered in grime and bruises.

Bitterly, Levi wondered how his life would have turned out if he had born in Hermiha. At least he would have probably gotten better food and grown taller as a result.


	5. Going Too Far

It was later in the morning when Levi's search finally produced some results: he found someone who recognised the elusive squad leader's name.

”I'm looking for someone called Zoë Hange. Ever heard of her?” he asked a candlemaker who had stepped out of her store to wipe the windows with a rag. She made a face and Levi immediately knew that he had a hit.

”Little Zoë eh...” she sighed and shook her head.

 _Little Zoë?_ That sounded all kinds of wrong unless she was talking about her breast size.

”Well, her mother used to live a few blocks from here.”

 _Used to live,_ on the other hand, was no laughing matter. He knew there had to be a reason he hadn't been able to find people who'd at least know her family name. However, the candlemaker plucked away his concerns just as easily as she had planted them.

”Nowadays Zoë comes here very rarely. I doubt you'll find her. She joined the army, you see” she told him apologetically.

Levi had a hunch this was one of those rare occasions, so he asked for the directions anyway. The woman's description lead him to an inconspicuous stone building squeezed next to another one that was just like it. It was a neighbourhood full of buildings like it, actually. The only way he could even tell he was in the right place was a sign with the building's number. Looking around, Levi was still pretty sure that he had walked past this place just half an hour ago or so. In hindsight, it felt strange that he had been at such a close proximity to what he had been looking for without knowing it.

When he walked up the wooden stairs and decks that ran along the building's exterior, he read all the name plates he walked by. First floor: Bakker and Lehmann. Second: Petros and Willems. Third: Albertsen and Neuhaus. Fourth and last floor: Kerlin and a door with no name plate, only a pale spot where there had obviously once been one. This had to be Zoë's.

A certain nervous chill settled in his stomach when he knocked thrice on the door and waited. And waited. He was just about to knock again when he heard a scramble from the other side that indicated that someone was indeed inside. When the door opened, it revealed a disheveled Zoë with hair that was messier than usual and a shiny forehead that indicated she hadn't washed her face yet. She was also wearing slacks that had a multitude of tears and a stretched sleeveless shirt whose neckline hung so low it was hardly decent, regardless of how meager the woman's bosom was.

The two stood silently for a moment. They stared at each other, one with passive disdain and the other with lifeless eyes as if she had just risen from the dead. Then Zoë blinked and became quite lively indeed.

”L-Levi?!” Zoë exclaimed and stepped backwards, looking like she had just seen a ghost.

”Why... No, _how_ are you even here?” she asked in utter disbelief and adjusted her crooked glasses. She eyed the captain from head to toe with a concerned frown.

”You're not in uniform... The HQ did send you though, didn't it?” she postulated, certain she was going to receive bad news from her superiors.

” _No_ ” Levi responded sharply. He would have wanted to tell her to stop playing dumb but he supposed that was inappropriate since he was imposing himself on her. Again.

”Well, what is it then?” she asked, irked by the captain's tight-lipped demeanor.

”Could we _not_ discuss that right here” he hissed irately, his steel grey eyes flashing with impatience as he glanced to his side in the other door's direction.

”Oh? Well sure, do come in...” Zoë muttered, seeming to wonder what the heck was so important, and started to step out of the way. However, just when Levi was about to step over the threshold, she had a sudden change of mind.

”Nooooo no no no, wait a minute! I don't think it's such a good idea after all!” she exclaimed and flailed her hands in front of him, trying to shoo him away.

The captain cocked his brow and retracted his step. Then, swallowing, he leaned slightly to the side to look past her. A feeling of dread started to form in his guts.

”Is it that bad?” he asked with a low voice.

” _Worse_ ” Zoë stated earnestly. Levi looked up, then to the side, then he clenched his jaws in determination and he stared right back at the woman's pleading eyes.

”I don't care. Let me in” he said with the grave voice of a man who was going to dive into a flaming building.

Inside the flat, it really was far worse than Levi had imagined. Pieces of plaster were crunching under his shoes as Zoë lead him through a hallway with walls that were a spider's web of cracks and spots were plaster had crumbled. There were random objects on the floor too, among them a spoon and a small book that lay on its open yellowed pages. It was clear they had been that way for a long, long time. The floor was covered in dust and Levi noticed that Zoë's bare feet were dark from it.

”As you can see... I don't come here very often” the woman said apologetically as she hesitantly lead her fellow soldier forward, stepping over an old newspaper ”I inherited it but, well, I don't really need it. And I've made a mess of it.”

The two had arrived at a room that had at some point probably been a pretty cozy parlour. Now, it was a jarring sight that really kind of made Levi want to back away from the woman as if she was a wild animal that could lash out at any time. The place wasn't just dirty, it was _ruined_. It looked like a someone had come in, smashed everything he could into bits, pushed over everything he couldn't, and then left, never to come back. Whatever had happened to the place, it certainly wasn't recent – everything was covered in a thick layer of dust except the trail of footprints Zoë had left behind her. The woman stood in the middle of the room, looking around while scratching her head. Then she turned around to Levi, obviously at a loss.

”Sorry! I thought I had chairs but I think they're all broken or buried” she shrugged, laughing weakly like this was just a little everyday inconvenience. When she saw Levi staring at her like she was a lunatic, her shoulders slumped and she looked away evasively, a forced grin frozen on her face.

”So. What is it that you came here for?” she asked, obviously just wanting things over with as quickly as possible.

Levi did a double take. He had known very well what to say and how to say it before seeing this incomprehensible place. He cleared his throat.

”I came to issue an apology and to tell you that you could definitely get me in trouble by complaining to Commander Smith about me” the man said clearly enough, his face lacking emotion. There, he had said it. He had even omitted the bit about bribing her to keep quiet.

Zoë blinked slowly, obviously confused by what he was saying.

”Okay, but … Why would I even think of telling the commander?” she blurted out.

Levi's anger at her obtuseness flared, but he contained it. He had come all this way for the sake of this looney and this was what he was going to get?

”Are you really making me spell it out for you?” he asked resentfully. Zoë was taken aback by this uncharacteristic display of emotion so she frowned and looked to the ground searchingly while she rummaged through her brain.

”Levi... I think you're misunderstanding something” she said slowly, picking her words with utmost care ”What happened at the study was indeed a bit … Inappropriate. But it's not like I couldn't have stopped it at any moment if I wanted to. And I didn't.” She blushed slightly and bit her lip.

”Besides” she continued before Levi could protest, holding up a finger to beg for an uninterrupted say ”it's not like it would've happened if I hadn't been teasing you, right? I fully admit that it was my intent to see if I could agitate you. As in piss you off, not... Well.”

Levi opened his mouth but then clenched his jaws, infuriated. Warily, Zoë looked at him become bottled up for a moment, then let out a short awkward laugh.

”Believe it or not, I'm actually a bit grateful. This way, if I die on the next expedition, I finally won't die a virgin!” she said, sounding almost jolly.

Levi opened his mouth again. Nothing came out. His face was being drained of all its colour and his expression changed from enraged to horrified. If this had been an attempt to make him see things in a positive light, it sure as hell wasn't working. Zoë didn't seem to notice this and kept talking in a casual manner.

”I always assumed I'd die a virgin y'know” Zoë confessed jovially ”I never thought I'd survive even my first outing so I always thought I had something better to do. I gave up on it and forgot about it, I guess.” She shook her head at her memories like she was remembering harmless childhood shenanigans and folded her arms across her chest.

”You've got to be shitting me” Levi finally growled and looked straight at her, _demanding_ her to be serious. When he didn't see a single sign that she had been exaggerating or lying, he placed his palm against his forehead and looked down with a strained expression. He stood silently and let it really, really sink in how badly he had misjudged her. He cursed himself for being such a damn judgmental prude.

”No” he finally said with forced calmness ”I won't accept this.” He glowered at Zoë from under his brows.

”Specs. Listen really fucking well. I have no idea if you understand how or why, but I acted like complete human trash towards you and I _am_ going to compensate for it somehow. If not by any other means then at least by getting some self-preservation skills through your thick skull” he swore to her intimidatingly. This mess had now completely changed from a matter of preventing an external crisis into him saving himself from a future of self-loathing.

”Also, have you ever heard the saying that one's dwelling is a window to the soul of the person who lives there? This- ” he then said, waving his arm over the chaos around him.

”is _insane_. Judging from this, you have no business being in charge of a squad. Or even being in the military in the first place” he said, his words sharp as knives.

Zoë stared at him with wide eyes. Levi's harsh judgmenet hung in the air until, out of nowhere, the woman burst out laughing. Hard.

”I see, you're finally back to your good old self, Captain Levi!” she cackled ”You've had all of us worried!”

This was definitely not the reaction Levi had expected, or wanted. The woman just kept laughing, too, like she had just heard the best joke in ages.

”Tell you what Levi” Zoë said after taking a deep breath, wiping a tear from the corner of her eye as she did ”I just woke up so I'm really hungry and I know a place that serves great potato pancakes. Everything looks worse than it really is when you're hungry, so let's continue this talk later, okay?” she suggested.

Levi would have wanted to say no, but truthfully, he was eager to get out of this disturbing place. He swallowed all his objections and breathed out to alleviate tension.

”Then it's settled” Zoë said, satisfied by this reaction ”Wait for me outside, alright?”

When the man was about to leave, he saw a wistful smile tugging Zoë's lips as she let her eyes roam around the ruined parlour. ”Stop accepting things like that so easily”, he felt like telling her. Not just about the soul window thing, either.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You can expect the rest of the fic to be uploaded bit by bit within the timespan of two days or so. It's done but I'm still compulsively reading it over and over again to make sure it's fine...


	6. Hypocrisy

Levi had been pessimistic about Zoë's change of attire after seeing what clothes she had worn earlier, but when she stepped outside to meet him, she looked like another person entirely. Her hair, while still messy, now looked less like a bird's nest and now she wore brown plus fours held up with braces, a shirt made of coarse unbleached fabric, black unbuttoned vest, leather boots, and a flat cap. The military style had obviously rubbed onto her a bit. She did look dapper in a modest sort of way, though.

”Let's go then!” she huffed enthusiastically and started descending the stairs, the old wood structure creaking under her stomping.

She lead her male companion to a tavern, one that Levi hadn't given a passing grade the day before, and ordered two portions of potato pancakes and two ales, the latter of which was immediately turned down. Levi decided to keep his mouth shut about Zoë's drinking habits but he certainly wasn't going to start drinking at noon even if it was just one ale. At the same time, he decided he wasn't going to make _any_ unnecessary comments about her private life in the future. It was none of his business, after all.

There was one thing he just had to know though.

”What the hell happened to that place?” he asked while he oversaw Zoë devouring the fried potato patties topped with sour cream.

”What _happened_ to that place? Hmmm” she pondered while she chewed. Such poor table manners.

”I happened, I guess” she then answered a bit awkwardly, waving a piece of pancake in the air with her fork as she shrugged ”I got a bit angry and needed to break something.”

This woman really did have some very serious problems. This was  _not_ the harmless, endearing kind of crazy people passed her off as, this was pathological. He still had to remind himself though: as deranged as she seemed to him, he'd probably seem as deranged to her if not worse if she knew what he had done in the past. So a change of topic was in order.

”What did you mean back there when you said that I've had 'all of you' worried?” he then asked ominously, indicating that he wasn't going to let this one go so easily. Zoë chortled, almost choking on her ale.

”You can be surprisingly obtuse, can't you Levi?” she coughed.

”... Elaborate.”

”You've seemed really high-strung and more unsociable than usual, dear captain, and that's had quite many of us comrades of yours worried. Especially your squad members, those poor lambs, they think you're being mean because they've done something wrong” she pitied theatrically.

Levi sighed in frustration – suddenly a lot of things about his fellow soldiers' behaviour made sense to him. He had completely underestimated them, those sensitive bastards.

”But, well, you seem less out of things now, somehow. That's good” Zoë then stated to cheer him up and drank her last drop of ale, making Levi wince by wiping her mouth on her sleeve. When Levi wouldn't say anything, she went ahead and filled the silence.

”Soldiers aren't things that only exist out there on the field, y'know, they're people” the woman spoke more seriously, almost sounding like Commander Erwin ”If you keep blowing up at your squad members when they approach you with their more mundane questions, you'll soon be the last one to hear when they have _any_ questions.”

Levi didn't know what to say except that she was right – he wasn't going to say that – so he kept quiet and ate. After Zoë stuffed herself with enough pancakes, the the two left the tavern and started walking back towards her home. Some heavy-looking clouds had appeared in the sky, rolling in from the south.

”Wonder if it's going to rain” Zoë muttered and protected her eyes with her hand while she looked up.

”Anyway, what are you going to do now? Go back to the HQ?” she then asked from Levi.

”I'm not leaving until we've settled this” he answered mercilessly. The woman sighed and rolled her eyes. She thought for a moment.

”Well, if you want to help me somehow, then... Would you mind helping me tidy the flat, with you being a clean freak and all that?” she then suggested.

Levi didn't respond, only gauged how serious she was.

”I've been trying to get myself to do it for a while now, and by a 'while' I mean about ten years … I just keep bailing out whenever I come here” the woman snickered, quite embarrassed of herself. Levi sighed and looked ahead, where some kids were teasing each other and some old woman was hobbling along with a cane, and thought for a while.

”If it's important to you, then I'll do it so we'll be even” the captain then promised with a low voice.

”Oh I assure you, it's important. I wouldn't let anyone who can't keep his mouth shut lay a hand on it" she declared, then narrowed her eyes slightly as she looked at her comrade.

"And if this deal isn't enough to mend your hurt pride, too bad, because I can't think of anything more substantial either” Zoë sneered, almost making Levi swallow his own tongue in surprise.

”Ah! I guess I said too much. Well, anyway, you know your way back from here, don't you?” she then asked cheerfully like the previous statement had never passed her lips ”The door's not locked. I'm going to go get a cart to haul some of the broken furniture and other garbage away.”

It was settled, then. This deal and how well Zoë had seemed to be able to read him made Levi feel uncomfortable on so many levels, but he had a hunch it wasn't going to get better than this. He returned to the flat and put down his duffel bag by the door. Then he took his cloak and jacket off, folding them and leaving them hanging on the handrail outside. Steeling himself, he stepped back into the chaos.

Before he did any actual cleaning, he convinced himself that you couldn't call assessing the size of his commission snooping into someone's private life. He'd spend some time just walking around, opening all the windows and their wooden hatches to let air and sunlight in. At the same time, he'd try to figure out just what the hell had prompted Zoë to smash the place. If not that, then at least he wanted to get an idea of what life was like when you were... Well, _normal_ sounded like a total misnomer, but something like that anyway. Someone who hadn't been an orphan living off the streets, in any case.

Looking at the parlour, it was clear that the family that had lived there had at some point had quite a lot of expendable income. Levi walked up to a glass cabinet that lay face down on top of a fallen chair and lifted it up to its original position: it revealed the remains of several sets of painted porcelain on the floor in addition to the tinted glass shards from its broken doors. A graceful table with a lace tablecloth had once been at the centre of the room surrounded by four chairs, all of them now with snapped legs. The floor was scattered with ornamental pottery and washed out clothes torn out of a dresser whose drawers Levi imagined to have been tossed against the walls, bringing down picture frames with them. It was a miracle that nothing had broken the windows.

Almost all of the pictures that had once hung on the wall, drawn on paper, were too faded to make out. Around them on the floor were dry, scattered remains of plants, so a broken flower vase had probably soaked them long ago. Only one was saved by its more or less intact frame and glass: it was a woman with long and dark wavy hair holding a basket full of pomegranates. Maybe it was a picture of Zoë's mother? He put it in the ruined glass cabinet so neither he or Zoë would step on it.

The kitchen was of the practical sort. All the stuff that had been in drawers and cupboards had been tossed on the floor, however, creating a carpet of tarnished silverware and cracked plates. The stove area was cleaner than the rest of the room, showing that it had been used recently. There was a walk-in cupboard too but he refused to look inside it, being certain he'd find that all the foodstuff had been left there to be devoured by vermin. Waste of food infuriated him.

Next, Levi followed a trail that looked like it had been traversed through the dust several times during the past few days. It lead to a room with two beds. Only one of them showed signs of having been used during what could have been something like a decade. In the corner there was a plush toy animal whose fluffy guts were spilled around it, two almost identical hair brushes, a book that taught grammar to children, a few notebooks, and the scattered remains of an abacus, among other stuff just laying about. Levi's guess was that this room had been shared by two daughters of similar age.

There was also a single desk that was piled up with the books Levi had seen Zoë pick out for herself in the study, probably to be used as reference. There were also a couple of empty food tins and a flask. The flask was filled with water, so at least she didn't seem to use this place to hide away and drink herself silly. He had at first thought that this madness could have been explained if she was a violent drunk, but if this damage had occurred in one go and as long ago as she had said, she must have been pretty young. Not that kids couldn't get their hands on alcohol but still, he just couldn't picture a drunk teenage girl doing all this.

Next room had a single bed. Everything was scattered – none of the contents looked particularly interesting. Judging from a torn dress on the floor, it had probably belonged to a woman, giving confirmation to Levi's belief that this place had belonged to a mother with at least two children. Opposite to that was a storage room which Zoë had either not bothered to ruin or had tidied afterwards. It contained some cleaning equipment that was still usable, like a broom, a pail, and some coarse brushes, which he took out to the hallway for later.

If there was something he had already learned for certain it was this: he had his work cut out for him.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From Wikipedia: "Potato pancakes are associated with cuisines of many European and Middle Eastern century-old traditions including Austrian, Belarusian (as draniki), Czech (as bramborák or cmunda), German (as Kartoffelpufferor Kartoffelpuffer), Hungarian (as tócsni and other names), Iranian, Jewish (as latkes or latkas ,Yiddish: לאַטקעס, Hebrew: לביבה levivah, plural לביבות levivot), Latvian (as kartupeļu pankūkas), Lithuanian (as bulviniai blynai), Luxembourg (Gromperekichelcher), Polish (as placki ziemniaczane), Russian (as draniki, драники), Slovak (as nálečníky), Ukrainian (as deruny) and any other cuisines which have adopted similar dishes."


	7. Sidestepping

The last room Levi hadn't checked in Zoë's flat turned out to be something of a mystery. All the other doors had hung open, but this one at the end of the hallway that ran through the flat was closed. Behind it was an office with a sombre, authoritarian feel. A ray of light streaming in between the wooden window hatches revealed another thick layer of dust, but otherwise the room seemed quite tidy. Nothing had been broken. There was an old, robust wooden desk, a wardrobe, a small cabinet, and two shelves.

Levi approached the desk. Numerous folders and old papers that lay in small stacks on top of it as opposed to the ones that were in order in the nearby shelf. It looked like someone had started to systematically take them out of the shelf and read them long ago, only to stop midway and never continue the task. Zoë probably spent a lot of time just reading and thinking in her old family home, yet she didn't use this lavish office for that purpose. Intriguing. And what was it that had protected this place from Zoë's ridiculously thorough demolition spree?

The answer, if you could call it that, was eerie. The candlemaker had told Levi that Zoë's mother had lived here – no mention of a father. Yet, when Levi took a peek into a large wardrobe in the office, it contained moth-eaten but well organised clothes that had belonged either to a man or an improbably tall woman. Clothes once fit for a high-class businessman, he surmised. Then, when he opened the window and its hatch, a breeze came in and made some of the papers on the desk flutter about. The next time he turned to look at his surroundings, something had appeared in the room, like a ghost. It was an elegant flintlock pistol that lay innocently on the desk.

The sight sent chills down his spine. He wasn't one to make baseless assumptions, but he was certain that this pistol meant something. Something bad. He concealed the firearm under some more paper and he chose to pretend he hadn't seen any of this. He walked out of the room back to the parlour and, after rolling up his sleeves, started to carry a broken chair outside so he could toss it over the rail – easier than carrying it down. At the door, he almost bumped into Zoë.

”Oh, hey. The cart is on the other side of he building. I couldn't bring it any closer, unfortunately” she lamented ”Also, the latest I could get them to come and pick it up was seven o'clock in the evening.”

”Better start working then, four-eyes. Slacking off is not allowed” Levi said with an intimidating voice.

”Aw – I thought you were going to do me a favour, not boss me around!” the woman whined.

”Teach a man to fish, and so on” snided the man, blowing away black strands of black hair that invaded his vision.

The two started hauling garbage into the cart, which would be horseless until its owners came back. For Levi, it was a mindless task of just going into the flat and grabbing as much useless stuff as he could. Zoë, however, had to decide what she wanted to hang on to and that was apparently very, very hard. After Levi had thrown the last broken chair over the railing and scared the hell out of one of Zoë's neighbours who had just opened their door, he went back to check the pile at the hallway where Zoë was bringing stuff to be taken away. To his annoyance, it hadn't grown much at all. She was being way too slow. He went to see what the problem was.

When he peeked inside the parlour, he saw her on her knees on the floor, staring at an object she had picked up. He flinched when he heard a quiet sob, and something that sounded a lot like ”I'm so sorry” over and over again. Then he managed to make out what the object was – it was the portrait he had put in the cabinet. Levi didn't make his presence known: he went back outside.

”Hey specs, you better not be slacking off there! We don't have all day” he yelled without a hint of mercy in his voice and hoped it would snap her out of it.

This all was so strange, it was severely creeping him out. He had seen Zoë howl in laughter in the process of killing titans like it was child's play and speak calmly to a captive titan whose giant maw had been inches away from biting into her, yet she had been powerless against a pile of _things_ for years and years. And now she sat on porcelain shards, crying. He shuddered. Despite his mild curiosity, he felt grimy having stepped into someone's private life and absorbed so much useless personal information like this. Well, it was still better than leaving without compensating for Zoë's not-entirely-voluntary loss of virginity despite having vowed to be an honourable soldier as long as he served in the army, so it wasn't _that_ bad.

The job continued slowly after that, but the two managed to get quite a lot of things loaded on the cart before seven in the evening. When the owners of the cart came with their horse to take its contents away to be burned or reused, Zoë's home was a lot emptier but it still carried years' worth of dust. This they would fix the next day, the last day either one could stay in Hermiha. The day after that would truly be the last day of their leave and that would have to be spent traveling back.

After bringing an oil lamp to see better in the now darkened parlour, Zoë stood silently in the middle of the room for a while, reminiscing. Levi halted what he was doing and stood a few paces behind her, waiting for her to say or do something.

”It's the first time I remember it being so … Bare” she mumbled melancholically. She walked around the room, lighting the objects that were left sitting in the broken cabinet and a somewhat repaired shelf next to it. She looked nostalgic. A pang of guilt was mixed in there, somewhere.

”It's been a long day” she then said, tearing her eyes away from the stuff ”I could use something to eat right about now. How about you?”

”I suppose” Levi answered plainly, rolling down his sleeves. He started walking towards the hallway where his stuff was ”I guess I'll stay at that tavern – it's closer by.”

An almost fearful voice rang behind him and made him freeze on the spot.

”Levi wait – don't.”

Zoë walked up to him. She grabbed his wrist from behind.

”Stay here for the night, _please_ ” she pleaded. Levi squinted his eyes and looked at her over his shoulder, however he saw that her proposition was an entirely serious one. He didn't approve of this at all.

”Nothing has to happen” she promised with a firm voice ”So please, I just can't stay here alone tonight. I know this is selfish, but...”

Levi sighed. Now she was _scared_. Did he have to slap some sense into her? But then, suddenly, a gut-wrenching thought occurred to him. The pistol. It was there and it represented something dark and uneasy about this place. It had become clear to him that something was to her what his past was to him, yet unlike him, she was willing to ask somebody to help with it.

 _But_ , he thought, _she should be asking someone else_. _Not me._

”No” he said harshly and pulled his wrist from her grasp ”I'm not your babysitter.” It was too bad, but he didn't want to get any more tangled in this mess.

”I want to just get this damn thing over with and leave” he specified further, his voice cold and sharp.

Zoë opened her mouth but couldn't say anything. Realising it was futile anyway, she closed her mouth and smiled sadly.

”... You're right. Sorry, forget I asked something so stupid. I have no idea why I'm being such a wimp all of a sudden” she apologised.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bonus tidbit: Zoë's neighbours are actually ecstatic because with all the stuff going out of her flat, they think she's finally moving away... The stories about poltergeists in the building have really dragged the property values down.


	8. Undervaluing

The tavern Zoë had taken Levi to during the day was much livelier at night. Neither one felt like being close to strangers right then so they sat down by a quieter corner were nobody else sat, or would sit because Levi would glare at them if they did.

Zoë looked quite ghastly: her eyes looked sunken in and she was still uncharacteristically quiet. The captain wondered what kept her from drowning her fears and sorrows like the binge drinkers that had gathered at the tavern but, considering the property damage she was capable of dealing, it was probably for the better if she shied away from behaviour like that regardless of why she did so.

Both started eating a hearty meal. Zoë, while still shaken, was invigorated slightly by the food and drink. Of course, the first thing she had to do after rebounding was to ask Levi a weird question.

”Levi, on a scale from one to ten, just how dirty was my home compared to the dirtiest place you've seen?” the curiosity-driven woman inquired while grinning impishly.

A shadow passed Levi's brow as he swallowed and put down his utensils. For a moment, Zoë was sure he'd tell her to mind her own business and not ask disgusting questions while he was eating.

”Three” was his sudden answer.

”What, only three?” she questioned in doubt and stopped shoving food in her mouth.

”Well what's the worst you've seen then?” she asked when he wouldn't elaborate on his own. He looked at her disapprovingly at first, but then he entertained her question earnestly.

”Specs, do you know how leather tanning works?” Levi asked coolly. Zoë folded her arms across her chest and thought about it.

”Well, you take the skin of a dead animal, clean it, and... I have to admit I don't know much about it” she confessed.

”It's far messier than that” the man uttered darkly.

”One way to do it is like this: you let an animal hide soak in lye for three weeks so the fat and hair attached to it becomes easier to remove. The fumes coming off of are so potent at that point, you have to be careful about breathing” Levi explained and picked up his knife, twirling it in his thin fingers.

”Then you take the rotting, stinking hide and stretch it over something so you can shave off the fur and fat” he continued while cutting a piece of cheese.

Zoë was taken aback by how well acquainted he was with this and continued to listen to him with utter fascination.

”After that, you soak the hide in piss and shit for several days.”

The woman burst out laughing.

”In what?” she asked incredulously.

”You heard me: you soak the hide in literal piss and shit. It softens it. After that process, you wash it, stretch it, and dry it”, Levi described, unfazed by the woman's astonishment.

Then, in a low voice, he continued: ”Now, imagine a slowly flowing trickle of a river lined with several tanneries, every single one of them cutting corners by tossing their filth into the river so it's full of shit, decaying gristle, and matted clumps of fur.”

”Wow, something like that must reek like hell” Zoë said in amused awe.

Levi paused. ”I'd grade that mess as nine out of ten.”

”So, does this mean you're not going to tell me what you'd grade as ten out of ten?”

”Yes” Levi scoffed and gave her a warning glare. From that, Zoë knew that he really wouldn't tell her so she let it be. She was already thoroughly entertained anyway.

However, after being in good spirits for a moment, she let out a deep sigh. She looked outside over her chair and across the bright and noisy group of people having a good old time. It looked like it would start to rain any moment.

”Levi, since you seem like you're able to stomach terrible stories, I want to tell you one of my own before I leave. Will you listen?” she asked him with a soft voice. Levi stopped eating again, knitting his brow. When he told her to neither begin or stop, she went ahead and spoke.

”You know how they write 'Devoured by titan' into people's death certificates?” she questioned further, looking around her to make sure nobody in the vicinity was listening.

”Of course” the captain said bluntly. He was disappointed that this wasn't the story about why she ruined her home.

”It can be a very deceiving statement. A lot of the time it's an intentionally fraudulent one as well” Zoë explained unhappily ”I know this because I have examined many piles of human remains thrown up by titans and seen how that statement is used even when it's obviously inconclusive.”

”I guess I can't blame them for lying by omission though” admitted she ”Writing the real thing could be bad for morale.”

Her eyes fluttered shut as she sighed again and her head tilted slightly, as if she was going to take a nap. With a monotone voice, she rescited from memory:

”Bled to death inside a titan's stomach. Drowned inside a titan's stomach. Slowly boiled to death inside a titan's stomach. Committed suicide by knife inside a titan's stomach. Steamed alive inside an evaporating titan.”

Then she opened her brown eyes again. They were slightly deader than before, and with the dark rings around her them, she looked quite spooky as she mourned.

”So, while this might be highly inappropriate of me, I ask you: please, always keep something with you that you can use to kill yourself painlessly. Tell your squad to do that too, just don't tell them why” she begged, not as the person Levi had spent the day cleaning, but as a fellow soldier.

The captain looked at her, thinking. This information hadn't come as a complete surprise – people did get swallowed alive sometimes and everyone knew that titans didn't have digestive systems, so their stomachs lead nowhere. But, because of what it implied about, say, killing a titan who had swallowed someone alive, it was more convenient to think about a person going inside a titan's stomach as non-existent after being devoured. But not to her, apparently.

”I will take it into consideration” he then stated plainly and looked down, going through the motions of eating despite not being particularly hungry anymore.

”Good” the woman stated and stood up ”I'll see you tomorrow then. Good night.”

She left the table, and on her way was startled by a very drunk man who bumped into her while getting out of his chair. Levi watched as she apologised to him politely with a smile, steadying him by giving him support. When that was over with, she went to the tavern owner to pay for her orders, after which she walked to the door and vanished into the darkness, where it had just started to rain.

Levi was starting to feel like he had been underestimating her on some fundamental level all this time.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Why yes, I DID see the "Filthy Cities" documentary series and I loved it to bits.
> 
> Also, Levi has 
> 
> *puts on sunglasses*
> 
> seen some shit.
> 
> YEEEEAAAHHHHHHHHHH


	9. Sabotage

It was morning. Levi stood in front of Zoë's door and tapped his foot impatiently while he waited for her to come open it. Nothing happened. He had already knocked two times. He was sure it was just because she was a heavy sleeper, but a persistent loose thread of worry kept dangling in his mind. Then, he remembered something. He tried to open the door by himself.

Unlocked. That careless idiot!

When he marched indoors and looked into Zoë's room, he found the offending slob sitting by her desk, her arms as her pillow while she snored away. The irritated man looked around, wondering what would be the best combination of objects to wake her up. He opted for a steel pail and a dipper from the kitchen. He walked softly into her room, held the pail right next to her ear, and gave it a good bang. Much to his satisfaction, the woman started with a shriek and started to fall backwards with her chair. He stepped out of the way nimbly and watched as Zoë fell over.

”Ow, shit...” she grumbled and rubbed the back of her head ”What the heck was that for?”

When she looked up, Levi saw that the rings under her eyes had gotten darker still and that her eyes were slightly bloodshot.

”I haven't got all day, four-eyes. I want to finish with this place as quickly as possible so I can leave” he said harshly.

”Also, consider this a punishment for constantly failing to lock the door” he added. Zoë laughed weakly as she stood up and reached for her glasses, which were on her desk.

”Well, it's not like there's anything valuable for anyone to steal here except really terrible silverware.”

Did she not know how valuable firearms were? Also, if only she knew what kind of ”trade” Levi had been involved in. Thinking of that was a mistake though – an image of Zoë standing in in shackles suddenly flashed across the man's mind and made him queasy.

”Huh? Is something wrong Levi?” Zoë asked while putting on her glasses. She had noticed his disgusted expression and probably thought it was because of something she had done, he congratulated himself.

”No. Let's just get this over with.”

The task of getting rid of all the dust and other small clutter was relatively straightforward. If this were his house, he would have done it 200% better, but he was pretty sure the hard limit for where Zoë was able to discern various stages of 'clean' stopped way before his so his effort would be wasted. There was also another thing that made him hurry though: something in the atmosphere had changed. It was hard to put a finger on it, but there seemed to be a growing, yawning gap between him and Zoë. One that made Levi feel increasingly unwelcome. It was like she had something important to do and was waiting for him to just buzz off. Of course, there was a million things Levi could have pointed in his prior behaviour alone as the reason why this could be, but he also had a hunch that it had everything to do with the office. In the midst of scrubbing the floors in the hallway, he noticed that the door was still closed so he decided it was time to confirm his suspicions.

”Hey...” he raised his voice as he walked into the kitchen, making Zoë turn her attention to him instead of the window she was wiping with a rag.

”Yes?” she complied while still leaning outside precariously.

”Do you want to have anything done about that room way in the back?” Levi questioned and looked at her expectantly.

”No, I'll do something about it on my own time” was Zoë's swift, unhesitating answer before returning to her task. Levi kept looking at her with a frown, only to get an evasive glance in his direction. She seemed determined not to look his way again.

 _It's none of your business_ , he reminded himself, _stop asking._

In the afternoon, the place started to look acceptably clean. Zoë went outside where Levi was pouring away another pailful of dirty water into a storm drain and stopped to lean against the wall next to it. Neither of them had talked in a while and the air between them was tense.

”Um, I think I can manage the rest on my own” she said to him quietly.

An aloof ”Finally” was Levi's only response as he straightened his strained back.

”I have one question though... How does one get rid of an illegal firearm?” she asked like it was a completely innocent question to ask. The man looked at her blankly, wondering if she knew he'd seen the pistol. She probably did.

”File off any identification numbers if they exist and depending how thorough you want to be, you either chuck it somewhere nobody will look for it or dispose of it in pieces” he answered quickly and matter-of-factly.

Zoë chortled, seeming surprised that he actually took her question seriously and was able to give good advice. Her asking this from him of all people most likely wasn't a coincidence – Levi knew that a rumour about him having been a thug before joining the army had started making its rounds around the Survey Corps. Thankfully, everyone seemed to assume it was an exaggeration if not an outright lie.

”Thanks. Are you still going to go to the HQ today? I know how you can get there quick if you need to. You could even sleep on the road” she told, trying to be helpful.

”Ah. Might as well” Levi responded without any discernible emotion in his voice.

”Good. You've done plenty and I'd feel like crap if you had to use your last day off getting there” Zoë said, sounding earnest.

Following her advice, Levi would board a mail coach that left in the evening, stop once to switch carriages, and arrive within a walking distance away from the Survey Corps headquarters before dawn. If the ride was smooth, he could get a good night's sleep on the way, instead of spending a day hopping from ferry to carriage.

”Make it there safely, you hear? Oh, and I suppose you want me to act like nothing's happened when I get back... I'll be sure to do that as long as you keep quiet about everything you've seen here, so no worries” Zoë spoke to him like a mother to a child who was about to run some errands. Levi picked up his duffel bag from her room and put on his travel cloak.

”I'll see you to that promise, then. Bye” Levi said simply, and left without looking back. Just like that.

Walking through Hermiha, trying to find a place to eat that was as far away from Zoë's home as possible, the captain felt exhausted. Some journey he had been on. He could finally go to his private quarters the next day and and spend the rest of his time off doing... What, exactly? Same useless shit as usual, he reckoned, and suddenly it felt like the most relieving thing in the universe. After his last day off, it would be life as usual. There would be that big expedition and a lot of people would die again no matter how well he performed. After that, it was going to be the usual preparing and patrolling once more until the next expedition. And during none of that would he talk to Zoë unless strictly necessary or make any indication that anything had happened between them. He'd block her out his mind completely.

Suddenly, he slowed down his steps. Something rung a bell – there was something familiar about his thought pattern. What exactly was he doing? He dissociated himself and looked at himself from afar. When it hit him, the cold wave of realisation almost made him lose his breath. He was in ”Burn all bridges” mode again. Not only that, he was feeling _bitter_ because Zoë had _ditched_ him.

Well what the heck had he expected? That after the incident at the study and then the way he had intruded her private life and coldly turned her down when she had asked for his help, she'd kneel and beg him not to leave? The more he thought about it, the more he realised that he felt bitter about a whole bunch of things – her not telling him about her secrets, her giving up on finding out about his secrets too easily, and _especially_ her not being distraught after he had taken her virginity. He was on his way back to the headquarters so he could lock himself up and _mope_ about all this, that was what he was doing.

Levi, kicking his own arse mentally, made a full stop and then turned around on his heels. He couldn't let himself be this childish. The very least he should do if he wanted to be honest with himself was to go and to _ask her_ _politely_ if she'd tell him more about her past since she had already bought his silence anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's like that moment when you go to check JUST ONE THING on TV Tropes and you catch your mouse hovering on a link to another article...


	10. Impatience

Zoë wasn't home anymore, Levi discovered. She had left and hadn't locked the door. Again. He wondered if he should wait for her, but he realised that would take more of his effort than going after her. So, where could she have gone?

Then he remembered: the pistol. He had thought it strange how she had asked about disposing it just before he had left. He immediately went into the office and looked around. The pistol wasn't on the desk. Had she gone somewhere to get rid of it? If so, where? Where in a small, heavily developed, closed district like Hermiha would one dispose of a gun? He hoped she wasn't dumb enough to go throw it in the river – rivers flowing through urban areas were cleaned every so often so the ferries could move unobstructed.

Then, he remembered the person who had brought the cart and taken the trash away. If he wasn't mistaken, that Mihail or whatever dealed in junk and garbage disposal. Since the only other alternative he could think of was to just wait, he decided to ask around if anyone knew where this business took place. If it didn't pan out, he still wouldn't have lost much.

One of Zoë's neighbours, an old man from the Bakker household who had come outside after timidly making sure that the whole furniture tossing business wasn't still ongoing, knew and told Levi the vague whereabouts of this Mihail person, whose services were apparently widely known in Hermiha. His warehouse was in the opposite direction from Hermiha's docks so he could be pretty sure that if he went there, he would never make it to the mail coach. However, he had more or less given up on that anyway. So he left.

In the somewhat seedy-looking area that he ended up walking to had many warehouses and other large, plain buildings to choose from, which was frustrating. It was already evening too, so there were fewer and fewer pedestrians to ask directions from. However, he did finally manage to find the damn place, mostly thanks to that Mihail guy, a potbellied pig of a man, smoking a pipe outside his warehouse.

”Hrmm. Why, if it isn't that lad from yesterday. What can I do fer ye?” asked he as Levi approached him.

”I'm looking for my … Friend” the captain said and the man chuckled.

”Ah, she's here. C'mon then. But I have to say, you have some _interesting_ friends, son” Mihail drawled as he lead him through a crack between two large double doors into a large storage area.

”Lass, you've got company!” Mihail yelled over piles of various kinds of rubbish. Levi heard something clatter loudly, then heavy breathing. In no time Zoë, wearing protective goggles, overalls, and gloves that were all too large for her yet somehow suited her _perfectly_ , walked into his vicinity from an alleyway between towers of trash.

For whatever reason, she was also carrying a humongous, heavy-looking hammer.

”Judging from the black clothes, the short stature, and these evil vibes I'm getting from your direction after mentioning the word 'short'... Is that you Levi? Sorry, I can't see very far without my glasses” she cackled and laid the hammer down with a heavy clunk.

”I'm going to go take a look at the horse so come outside and give a holler if ye need something. Don't ye dare take stuff from any of the piles I told ye not to touch” Mihail said before going back outside, taking his disgusting old tobacco smell with him.

”Sure thing Mihail!” Zoë complied merrily. Levi walked closer to her so she could at least see him properly.

”So, what are you doing here? You just missed the mail coach y'know” she asked with a worried tone, one hand on her hip and one hand holding the handle of the hammer. Levi knit his brow – she stood there with that hammer and she asked what _he_ was doing?

”I considered it my responsibility to check that you're not doing anything stupid with that pistol” he answered discourteously. He'd get to the real reason in a moment, he promised himself.

”Ah, so you _did_ see it... Well, I dismantled it, used Mihail's tools to file down all the number and letter series, and put it together again so I can smash it with this hammer. I'm practicing with it first though!” the woman said gleefully, her eyes sparkling as she lifted the aforementioned hammer for him to see. She looked like she had found her new best friend.

Levi didn't share her enthusiasm, of course. Zoë, not bogged down by this at all, walked back to the rubbish pile she had come from, dragging the heavy tool behind her. Levi walked with her, but a good many paces behind her, and then saw the pistol on the floor nearby.

”So... What's the story behind it, if you don't mind me asking?” Levi asked her with as neutral and respectful a tone he could muster. It wasn't that much but...

”Well, since you've come this far, I guess I might as well tell you everything” she said with a resigned sigh. At the same time, she was eyeing an old wooden barrel on the floor in front of her like an opponent of hers.

”Like you may have guessed, that pistol was my father's, just like that office” she said in a cheerful manner that seemed out of place and readied her hammer. She swung it, making the barrel disintegrate into several arched pieces of wood that wouldn't be very fun to break one by one. She kicked the pieces aside, then dragged an old chair out of a pile that was apparently full of particularly unusable stuff.

”You see, my father was a bit of a workaholic” continued she, taking a deep breath. She was ready to swing again in no time.

”When his freight company went under, he shot himself with that pistol.” She swung. The hammer tore through the flimsy wooden object like it was paper and transmitted all of its kinetic energy to the floor with a loud thump

”My poor mother never recovered from finding him that way in the office” she said with a hoarse voice while kicking away these pieces as well.

”Me and my sister” pant ”knew the only reason she really hung on after that was because she didn't want to abandon us.” She had to take a bit of a break so she stood still while clutching onto the hammer's handle, wiping her forehead with her gloved hand.

”My sister joined the army though! And she told me that she'd never forgive me if I did the same, because that would leave our mother all alone.” Her voice cracked a bit. She pulled some sort of large but flimsy mechanical part, probably a fan, from the pile.

”I was very angry at both of them” she admitted and swung. One of the blades of the fan was detached and flew through the air, thankfully not in Levi's direction. He took a step back anyway.

”I got tired of how overbearing mum was. So, as soon as I turned twelve, I told her to bite it and enlisted anyway.” She went straight for the next object: a broken wooden crate.

”My sister stopped talking to me and I stopped talking to mum” she growled while swinging. The crate split in several directions on the remains of the metal fan. She kicked them both aside.

”Well, while I aimed for the Military Police, my sister graduated and joined the Survey Corps” she said with a shaky exhale. The next piece of trash was an old iron pan.

”She died!” her voice rang almost the same instance the hammer created a huge crater on the pan. She swung again, this time nearly flattening the whole thing.

”When my mum found out, she killed herself” announced she while kicking the pan away as well, making room for a rotten wood sculpture of a sheep laying down.

”Would you like to guess what she killed herself _with_?” she asked with a strained voice. She swung, creating a hammer-shaped crater on the soft wood. The next swing pretty much shattered it, reducing it to splinters. She had to take a break again, the hammer was so heavy.

Levi, who had watched this peculiar show silently, noted that judging from her wild-eyed look, she was about to lose it out of grief and guilt. Yet she still tried to sound like she was enjoying herself tremendously.

”When I came home for the first time in two years, mum had already done it and her body had been cremated. I didn't even get to see her off” she panted and wheezed.

”So I lost control. I smashed the place until I couldn't even lift a finger anymore.” Seeing her now, Levi could now easily imagine a fourteen-year-old Zoë raging and kicking and punching down everything in sight, her neighbours too scared for their lives to intervene. He could also imagine her returning to the military school, completely changed.

”I've been trying to get rid of this thing for years, but I've always wiggled out of it” the exhausted woman then said and walked to the pistol, her arms trembling from the effort to lift the hammer.

”Let's see how it goes this time!” she said and swung the heavy lump of metal with a guttural shout.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One of the other options I thought of was to have her throw it off the wall but that didn't seem very practical. Throwing trash down from the walls is probably a grave offence anyway.


	11. Cruelty

Zoë swung her hammer. The wooden frame of the pistol was smashed to pieces by the blow. Some of the smaller metallic parts detached with a clatter and the barrel of the weapon was bent and another swing cracked and flattened it considerably. The woman was going for a third one but it was too much – she couldn't lift the immensely heavy lump of metal anymore. So, she sank to her knees and breathed heavily, looking at the destroyed pistol in disbelief.

”Welp, now this one's gone too. First the flat and now this – I'm running out of things to remind me what a stupid, terrible person I am” she lamented, sounding both sarcastic and serious at the same time.

Levi scrutinised her from the sidelines. She looked tired, ashamed, sad, and guilt-ridden, and it all made so much sense to him now. This person was Zoë Hange: a largely sane human being who thought no mentally sound person could do what she did, so she _must_ be crazy. The captain secretly admired her victory over one of her tools of self-injury, so when he saw her hovering over the weapon, hesitating, he decided to break his silence.

”You better not think of keeping even a tiny piece of that trash” he warned her. He walked up to the remains of the pistol and kicked them away like Zoë had all those other things she had smashed.

”I'm disappointed” he then scorned ”I thought you'd done something far more interesting, judging from the mystery around all this.” This could be an absolutely terrible idea, he acknowledged, but went ahead with it anyway.

”I drove my own mother to commit _suicide_ , for fuck's sake!” Zoë snarled and looked up. Her fury turned to bewilderment for a moment when she was met with Levi's outstretched hand, waiting for her to take it. More out of a reflex than anything, she grasped it and was pulled up.

”Well, want to know what I did before I joined the army?” Levi asked spitefully. Zoë was obviously irked by his belittling.

”Were you a thug of some kind like the rumours say?” she guessed, not impressed at all.

”Not just any kind of 'thug', shitty four-eyes” he grimaced crassly like his career as a criminal was being looked down upon.

”I was involved in human trafficking, among many things” he revealed ”I went around poor neighbourhoods looking for people to make a profit with, told someone who might be interested, and then I went in with a bunch of lackeys and caught them. If someone tried to stop us or if someone was hell bent on escaping, we'd kill them on the spot.” He almost relished his wickedness. Zoë's face contorted in disgust.

”The best part is, I wouldn't have needed to. I could have made a living doing filthy but at least somewhat honourable jobs. And I could've joined the army as soon as I turned twelve. But when I saw how people lived in other places, I decided that I'd do whatever it takes to get the hell out of the gutter and turning to crime was the easiest way” he spoke further, trying not to sound the least bit hurt. He had made a pretty good guess of what Zoë's reaction would be to his past, but that expression of hers still cut him. He turned his side to her, looking away.

”So yeah, keep telling me that you're a terrible person. Makes things seem really hopeful to those of us who are actually terrible and are trying to kick the habit” he hissed bitterly.

Zoë watched him, trying to imagine the short sassy clean freak and hero of mankind doing such things as he had described.

”How do you live with yourself?” she asked, her tone both revolted and genuinely curious. The man glanced at her. She had calmed down considerably. _Good_. He looked away again.

”By trying to convince myself that I've changed” he told honestly, coldly ”but every time I'm close to succeeding, shit like _this_ happens.”

Zoë blinked slowly, her eyes fixed on the man who was stubbornly avoiding eye contact. She mulled over things for a moment, then she sighed and her shoulders lost their tension. It wasn't too difficult for her to see what Levi's aim was.

”Levi... Thanks, I guess. For a bunch of things. For putting up with me for the past two days and for entrusting such personal information to me, for starters” she said tiredly.

”But stop beating yourself over what happened in the study already. It was nothing” she reprimanded him.

 There was nothing that could have prepared her for what happened next.

”Don't call it _**nothing**_ _!_ ” Levi bellowed furiously and took a step towards her before he could hold himself back, then almost immediately bit his mouth shut and shrunk back, vexed and humiliated.

Zoë was surprise just as much by the outburst as the deflation that came after it. She stood in front of him, staring at him warily and at a complete loss as to what to say or do. Levi took a couple of highly controlled breaths to calm himself down.

”It was a _failure_ ” he confessed, struggling vehemently against his pride ” _My_ failure.”

”Even if it meant nothing to you, to me it was more proof of how I haven't changed” he continued with difficulty, choosing his words with great deliberation.

”S-Sorry” Zoë stuttered fearfully ”I'm kind of clueless about things like these.”

Seeing how he had blown up at her, Levi was reluctant to say anything anymore. Even Zoë hesitated.

”Um, I guess I lied a bit” she then confessed as well ”It couldn't have been _nothing_ , because I felt … Well, hurt. I thought that maybe you ran away because I'm disgusting. Or something.” She babbled and looked away.

” _No_ ” Levi spat angrily ”that was me not knowing what the hell to do after doing everything wrong.”

Zoë started laughing. Offended, Levi clamped down and glared at her.

”Sorry, I just... I guess I thought that this kind of stuff came naturally to everyone except me. Because that's what it's always felt like” she explained with flailing hands, embarrassed at herself. Her face was as red as a tomato.

”B-but, in any case, I still think your way of thinking is skewed” she continued, holding up her palms as a sign that she meant no harm.

”I mean a, uh, failure like that is hardly comparable to killing or enslaving people. I have never seen or heard you doing anything like that since you became a soldier. You're highly respected by _everyone_ in the Survey Corps y'know. I don't know if you know this, but your squad brags about you _all the time_ even though you're kind of mean. Are you really sure you haven't changed? I mean, it sure seems that way to me” she rambled on nervously.

Levi couldn't answer. He couldn't meet her eyes either. Suddenly this had become all about him, and he hadn't wanted that, either.

”You're ridiculously hung up on your past too, four-eyes” he grumbled ”If I know anything about kids, it's that they all do stupid selfish things. Don't think you're special just because of that.”

… Well that sure came out all wrong. Zoë burst out laughing at his bluntness, which only made it worse.

”Don't laugh at something like that!” he commanded harshly, but then toned himself down ”You accept things too easily.”

”M-maybe” she stammered unsurely, but then adopted a confident smirk that looked out of place on her blushing face ”but I love how it totally throws you off.”

”Tsch” Levi chuffed in annoyance. So there _was_ something like that behind it.

Around this point neither could think of anything topical or urgent to say. Both felt like some kind of consensus had been reached. All they could do was to stand in awkward silence because neither one really knew how to act around another now that so many things had been said and done.

And then Mihail came. When he had come in or how much he had heard, neither knew, but both were several shades of red when they saw him waddle from the trash alleyway.

”Oh-ho, I see that the deed's done” he huffed merrily as he saw the scattered remains of what had recently been a masterfully crafted flintlock pistol ”Now let's wrap this up, my wife will be livid if I'm out much longer.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mihail's WIP names: Thorsten, Dietrich, Yanis. Mihail came to me from remembering this psychologist: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihaly_Csikszentmihalyi
> 
> ... N-no, I'm not implying he looks like a "pot-bellied pig of a man"!


	12. Striped Beasts

Zoë Hange couldn't remember the last time she had been such a nervous wreck. After getting rid of the safety goggles, the gloves, and the overalls, she and Levi had started to walk westwards from Mihail's warehouse in complete silence. The further they walked, the more urgent it became to ask Levi where he was going to stay for the night, but she just couldn't spit it out despite normally being such a blabbermouth.

She had actually kind of resented Levi, although not for the reasons he probably thought she would. Her lifestyle hadn't allowed for an exploration of physical or emotional intimacy and she had eventually become okay with that, only to get a really confusing, really unsatisfying jump start from him, of all people. That had felt really unfair! It was like she had endured a storm only to drown in a puddle. However, even that would have been okay, after all she'd still rather experience more things before dying than less, if the man hadn't then come along saying he'd _compensate_ for it, obviously just to mend his hurt pride.

Yet, here she was, completely at the mercy of her curiosity. Levi was a very attractive man with or without a complicated past, she couldn't deny that. And she obviously meant _something_ to him, otherwise he wouldn't have told her about his past. In any case, even if it would be a one-time thing, she wanted to know what a sexual encounter with him that wasn't a ”failure” was like. But, she was scared that he'd turn her down again. She had her pride too, even if she wasn't as fussy about it as he was!

”Levi” she finally spoke and hoped he saw her face in the dark of the night as poorly as she saw his. The clouds were covering the moon and the stars and there weren't very many lamps or torches around.

”Where are you staying tonight?” she managed to ask without a noticeable stutter. Levi turned his head, indicating he had heard her, but he didn't answer.

”My place is free” she then stated the obvious, stiff as all hell.

Levi was quiet again. But this time he did speak after a moment.

”If I stay at your place, I _will_ have sex with you. Are you sure you're okay with that, four-eyes?” he said bluntly with a low voice.

His straightforwardness was such a godsend sometimes.

”Yes” the woman said quietly while grinning from ear to ear, relief wrapping around her like a warm blanket.

Zoë's breathing became more and more controlled the closer she got to her home and the tension just kept rising. She wanted to make a run for it but she didn't want to seem _too_ eager. When she went inside her flat, however, she was reminded that she wasn't alone in this. The captain stepped indoors, locked the door, and dropped his duffel bag with a thump before walking up to her and pushing her against the wall of the hallway, surprising her with a kiss. He was embracing her like he was clinging onto his dear life.

The bottom of Zoë's stomach tightened when she felt his erection rubbing against her thigh. She pressed herself against it, making him suddenly remove his lips from hers and gasp sharply for air. She could hardly believe any of this was happening – she wanted to see what kind of emotions she could see on his face, immediately. So, she squirmed and slid away from between him and the wall and grabbed his wrist, starting to drag him into her room. Her heart felt like bursting when the tables were suddenly turned on her – he passed her through the shadows and started dragging her instead. In the bedroom, she fumbled for her oil lamp and lit it nervously. She turned around to see Levi.

Now her heart fell instead – what she saw was a very conflicted expression. He looked aroused, certainly, but his intense eyes were also lost, anguished, and somewhat ... Grudging, maybe?

While Zoë stared at him hesistantly, the man cursed – he knew that she was seeing something she wasn't supposed to see. So, he went to her and kissed her deeply, trying desperately to overwhelm her so she wouldn't think about what she had just witnessed. He was still recovering from the realisation that suddenly, he could no longer dissociate himself. He couldn't look at this situation from afar, analyse it, or rationalise it. She had gotten him, all of him, to gather in this one place and trapped him there. All of him was clamoring hopelessly for the same thing, which was foreign and alarming, scary even.

With shaky breaths and short kisses down her neck, he started to undress her. She also undressed him, and they were both suddenly so clumsy Zoë would have laughed at it if they both hadn't been so seriously frustrated by it. As the clothes came off of her, they revealed a muscular yet supple woman with very similar scars to his and the same, not completely healed bruises from the harnesses. He traced the faint strips of reddish purple with his fingers in awe as soon as they appeared from under her clothes. Levi was _shivering_ in anticipation and you could hear it in his breath – he felt as if he was meeting a member of the opposite sex of his _real_ species for the first time in his entire life.

Zoë watched this behaviour with astonishment and slight worry. Was he going to be alright? But, on the other hand, her concerns were partially drowned out by the sight of a thin but ripped human male, one who still somehow managed to look just as boyish as he looked manly despite his numerous battle scars. His pale, soft-looking skin was in wonderful contrast with his straight black hair and narrow, intense eyes with a haunting steel grey hue. Such a wonderfully unique specimen, she thought.

Her glasses were the last thing to come off, then Levi steered her impatiently towards the bed and she went there ahead of him, unknowingly showing off her whole figure from behind as he stayed a couple of steps behind her. For a moment, he was mesmerised: her hips and the arch of her back were exciting to him on a more familiar level. When he went after her, he hastened her crawl on top of the bed and pulled her arm to turn her around. She settled down on the mattress on her back, her dark eyes lustrous as she looked at all of him while he leaned over her from a kneeling position. He wasn't going to be able to hold out any longer or he'd go insane.

Levi supported his torso with one arm resting next to Zoë's head as he spread her thighs with his own and slid them under hers, his hips inching closer to her. The woman breathed erratically just knowing what was coming and wrapped her legs around his waist. When he penetrated her with the guidance of his hand, she drew him in with her legs and enclosed him, eliciting a mix between a growl and a hiss from between Levi's clenched jaws. He ground his hips against hers before pulling back and thrusting in again, making Zoë whine in pleasure. Her arms pulled Levi's torso into an embrace while she raked her fingers through his hair with one hand and clawed his back with another. She had been dripping wet since somewhere halfway home and was already feeling like she could burst.

The man felt completely drained of his decisive power as the woman's warm insides kept sucking him in. He let go of his last restraints, not that he had any choice in the matter. He rocked his body against her wildly so her small breasts jiggled and a muffled, wet sound of skin on skin could be heard. The woman under him moaned his name, begging, and he couldn't contain a moan of his own as he quickened his pace. He let himself make all the noise he wanted – grunts, groans, repeating her name, the whole lot. The bed started shaking and the thought of everyone in the building hearing them passed his mind. All he did was hope that the neighbours would think it was just ghosts having a great time, because he wasn't going to stop. He _couldn't_ stop.

Soon, however, Levi started feeling his muscles revolting against the constant tension, making him fear he would run out of strength. But, when his pace dropped, Zoë increased her output, writhing and bucking against him from the bed. It drew more energy from some reservoir in him, making him clench his teeth and his feet dig deeper into the mattress as he raised up his torso so he was sitting more than laying, grabbed her hips, and started thrusting again. A voiceless shout got stuck in his throat as the woman's abdominal muscles flexed and her insides convulsed, tightening around him. He bucked with twitchy movements before finding a rhythm again.

All this was completely new to him, he managed to comprehend as he was gasping for air and still trying to meet Zoë's noisy but wordless demand to go harder and faster. This whole sex thing made so much more sense now, it really was like he had been fucking a different species altogether. Zoë, too, was completely baffled, enthralled, and ecstatic. Feeling Levi inside her was so _weird_ just like last time but it felt so _right._ Like this, two major things were competing for her attention: Levi's cock coming in and out of her, which she would have wanted to see, and Levi's wonderfully emotional face, which she also wanted to see. And then there was an urge to just close her eyes and concentrate on moving and all the other sensations except sight. And she knew she had to hurry up and decide, because her clock was ticking and –

Suddenly the escalation in pure pleasure made her cry out uncontrollably as her entire body rippled with tension. She arched her back while supporting herself with her elbows, squeezed Levi's body against her with her legs, and rode the wave of euphoria helplessly. Meanwhile Levi could feel her quivering flesh tighten around his member and he knew he was going over the edge. He yelped like he was in pain and thrusted deep and hard several times, his muscles jolting and trembling. It felt like she was trying to milk him dry.

When it was over, he felt air-headed and collapsed on top of Zoë. He gasped and panted against her clavicle, his lungs burning. Then, he remembered that he shouldn't rest yet. He propped himself up with his arms again, only to discover that Zoë was in the same state of utter exhaustion as he was. She had come before him, he then realised, feeling a bit dumb. Relieved, he used his last ounce of strength to lie down next to her on the cramped bed.

Drowsily, he kept looking at her as she held her forearm over her closed eyes and drew quick breaths, her chest rising and falling slower and slower. The sound of rain hitting the roof reached his ears and made him wonder if it had just started raining or if he just hadn't noticed it. Most likely the latter.

When Zoë could think again, she looked to her side and could see Levi's eyes open and close lazily for the last few times before he fell asleep despite his best efforts. She beamed as she stood up slowly, intending to walk to the lamp. Her smile turned into a grimace when she felt warm trickling against her inner thigh and decided to find something to clean herself up with before that. Levi's handkerchief, she remembered for the first time since that study room incident. He had dropped it, she had picked it up and washed it, then she had folded it in her pocket so she could return it and maybe taunt him for littering.

After that was done with, she turned off the light, grabbed a spare blanket, and carefully covered Levi's naked body with it before creeping under the cover next to him. She wondered wistfully what her sister would think if she was alive and knew what exactly she had done in their room. Then, she fell asleep and slept well in her childhood home for the first time in years.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That poor handkerchief just can't seem to get a break... Also, Zoë, if you're going to worry what your sister would think, at least have sex in your OWN bed.


	13. From Now On

In the morning, Levi woke up because suddenly half of him was _freezing._ He found himself half covered by a blanket that was otherwise hogged by Zoë, who slept soundly next to him. He felt like kicking her off the bed but decided against it because this way, he could wash up and shave without her hovering around him, making all kinds of unnecessary observations. Like that he looked ridiculous with a stubble, which he was already painfully aware of.

He grabbed his bag and a pail and headed outside wearing nothing but trousers. The sun was half up, the early morning spring air was cool, and the town was still. If the wooden deck stairs were this cold, the ground would be a pain to walk on bare feet, he thought, but he didn't care. The water down at the water pump attached to the building was even colder but he had to do with it since he had no way of warming it up quickly. He and Zoë had completely forgot about things like lighting the stove so the place wouldn't be cold as winter in the morning.

Down at the water pump, he started by cleaning his teeth with his special cleaning kit, one of his prized private possessions. Having once lived in squalor where any person gutsy enough to survive to a ripe old age walked around with a painfully rotten mouth, he took oral hygiene extremely seriously. Then he splashed his torso with water and scrubbed himself thoroughly with a towel. After that, he sat on a bench that was against a wall and shaved. It was a pretty shoddy re-enactment of his usual morning ritual, actually, but for once he didn't care. And he'd continue to clean everything below his waist indoors, anyway.

He cursed his luck when the door to the Lehmann household on the first floor opened with a creek and a middle-aged man in Garrison uniform stepped out. After closing the door and taking a couple of steps, he looked straight at Levi, who had to stop because he was blocking his path to the stairs. The older male scanned his junior head to toe in a scrutinising manner, then moved out of Levi's way. With a blank expression, the latter walked past him with his pail full of water and his bag thrown over his shoulder.

”So she finally managed to find someone as crazy as she is, huh?” he heard the man say to him with an amused chortle as he vanished around the corner. Levi's cheeks burned and he clenched his fist around the pail's handle as he walked on.

Zoë had woken up while he had been out, and she sat on the edge of the bed, still stark naked, not even wearing her glasses yet.

”Morning...” she grumbled and scratched her scalp. For a moment, Levi simply stood at the doorway with the water pail.

”What is it?” she then asked with a husky morning voice.

”You look like shit” Levi stated bluntly. Zoë burst out laughing.

”Well if I do, it must be because of something you did!” she returned the insult. Levi almost smiled, almost. This felt like the natural Zoë – still crazy, but not overdoing it.

”How are we going to go back to the HQ?” Levi then changed the topic.

”Mail coach arrives at the ferry docks outside Hermiha at 8:55 and leaves at precisely 9:07, stopping at a logistics centre in a town called Reuben. From there, we can get on a different carriage that stops at a walking distance from the HQ sometime before evening” she spoke as if she was reading a timetable.

 _Damn_. There wasn't time for a round two if they wanted to eat something before leaving.

”Then it's about time you wash up and get dressed, four-eyes” he said and put the pail down.

”Yes, mother” Zoë responded in a sing-song voice.

The carriage ride to Reuben was pure hell. Mail coaches had their flimsy and uncomfortable seats outside on the roof and the weather wasn't particularly good for this sort of traveling. It was good that it wasn't raining any harder, but constant ever-so-slight drizzle was very unlikable too. Zoë didn't seem to mind even a bit though – she talked continuously with the mail coach, mostly about titans and recent political happenings despite more than half of this being well beyond the driver's understanding. Unlike her, Levi was constantly bored and annoyed and suffering from slight motion sickness.

After reaching the logistics centre, Zoë negotiated a ride on a standard freight carriage and that was a lot better. The ride was slower and smoother and the clouds subsided as an added bonus. Not only that, but she finally stopped talking. The driver wasn't looking behind her much from the driver's seat, so they even leaned silently against each other for a while. It was a quiet, serene moment that almost made them forget they were heading back to aid humanity in its hopeless struggle against the titans.

On their way to the Survey Corps headquarters from the stopping point of the carriage, both were quiet as they walked. Finally, Zoë brought up a dilemma they both had been thinking about for a while.

”Soooo. Now what? Would going in at the same time seem too suspicious?” she asked Levi.

”It would” he said without hesitation ”but that titan sniffer has probably told someone I was going to look for you in Hermiha and who knows how far and wide _that_ person has spread that information. Avoiding each other would probably cause even more suspicion than going there together.”

Zoë knew exactly who 'titan sniffer' referred to.

”Mike, huh? So that's how you knew how to find me. Levi, I'm flattered, however I can assure you he hasn't told anybody else, so we don't have to waltz in there hand in hand. In fact, right now I'm wondering what kind of extraordinary stunt you did to get him to tell you anything about me in the first place” she said with full confidence.

”And why's that?” Levi asked irately.

”He was in the same squad as my sister and... Well, he heard a lot of things from her, apparently” was the woman's answer.

”Can you believe it – I even went through the trouble of changing my surname into my mother's maiden name so nobody would make the connection yet I got asked if we were related _on my very first day_ in the Survey Corps. Mike denies it, but I suspect he can smell relatedness, somehow”she said, quite annoyed but amazed all the same.

”Tsch! With that nose of his, that bastard can probably smell whenever people have had sex as well” Levi cursed, remembering the way Mike had gauged him ”We have to be careful with that in the future.”

The _in the future_ part made Zoë's hear flutter in surprise. She covered her mouth to hide a wide grin. He was a bit conceited thinking it was a given she'd have him again but that wasn't anything she couldn't discipline him for later.

”He won't tell anybody – I think he knows a lot of embarrassing things about people but you never see him spreading any of that information” she chuckled.

It was agreed that Zoë would go to the squad leaders' private quarters first and Levi would go in at least an hour later after he had done some shopping so he had a convenient reason to lug his bag around. He felt obligated to at least buy a carrot or two for his favourite horse, a very steady and predictable beast who would have probably enjoyed a trip that didn't involve gigantic human-like creatures nearly trampling it to death.

When he was done pampering that pesky animal, he turned around and saw trouble. Big trouble. Commander Erwin stood at the stable door, waiting for Ness to bring him his horse. He was looking straight at Levi with those analytic blue eyes. Levi didn't salute him, he never did when he didn't absolutely have to, he was just going to walk past him quietly and go to his private quarters. Erwin didn't let him.

”Well well, how has your leave been?” he asked, scanning his subordinate with his eyes.

”Terrible as always” Levi responded without hesitation. The commander cocked his brow.

”Did you have a good trip” he begun, then narrowed his eyes ”with Miss Hange?”

He couldn't have known that. And he hadn't, Levi realised, until he had confirmed his wild guess by flinching. That bastard. He wasn't going to let the cat out of the bag for him to pester and tease, however.

”Whatever might you be talking about, commander? You must be imagining things” he said in monotonous mock reverence. Erwin exhaled through his nose, thoroughly amused.

”Excuse me – for a moment I forgot that soldiers' private lives are none of my business” he apologised.

”Carry on” he then dismissed his underling, knowing full well that doing so when Levi was off-duty annoyed him greatly.

And was it just Levi, or had he sounded somehow proud? He didn't even want to know, he decided. He left without saying another word.

Truly, like he had suspected, Erwin Smith was proud. He was proud because he knew that the scrawny street rat of a boy he had once known was no longer just surviving, but finally exploring possibilities. He was a bit worried about what an affair between Levi and Zoë Hange would mean to his plans for the future of the Survey Corps, but the more he thought about it, the more he was convinced that they wouldn't let anything get in the way of their mission. They would still give their all, because that's how his soldiers were. They would die for humanity if they had to.

Wistfully, he hoped that one day something would come up, something that could help him shape a world where neither they, nor any single one of his soldiers, would ever have to do that anymore. Until then, it was always going to be this way with relationships within the Survey Corps ... They would remain hidden, awkward, and just a bit insane.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ever since I randomly thought about what level of understanding people would have about oral hygiene in the SnK universe, I haven't been able to shake off the frighteningly appropriate mental image of Levi as a dentist. 
> 
> "You wouldn't be bleeding this much if you flossed more often *stab stab stab*"
> 
> The fact that Levi is voiced by the same man as Arararararagi Koyomi makes it all the better...
> 
> Anyway, this fic is finally over...


End file.
